Vinnie Vega • 6 hours ago
UML showed me absolutely nothing last weekend, except their continued willingness to play down to their competition, and by play down, I mean attempting to play Madigan thug hockey on Friday with NU and squandering a dozen opportunities on Saturday.
I'm looking at a team that is still trying to find chemistry. Bazin continues to shuffle lines (granted, after Hough got hurt on Friday, it was a bit more necessary) in an attempt to find combinations that work. One would have thought that this would have been done before Christmas at the latest, but it's still going on. I wasn't going to throw guys under the bus on Saturday night as a knee jerk reaction to the lost weekend, but I've had a couple of days to think about this and I'm still as ****ed and confounded as I was then. So, here goes...
There are by my count, exactly three guys on this team with heart, well two guys and one guy with ice water in his veins (Boyle IMO, can not be criticized here, he's exceeded all expectations). McGrath and Gambardella never take a shift off, EVER! If half this team played as hard on the puck as these two guys, we'd be in great shape, but they don't. I still see guys with no concept of puck pursuit. I see guys who bolt through the neutral zone and then coast from the dots on a forecheck, this is absolute garbage, and if you think that got you in trouble with NU and UNH, wait until next weekend.
Discipline is again becoming an issue with this team and guys who are wearing letters on their jerseys are part of the problem...yes Chapie, I'm talking about you. For a guy with the kind of skills he possesses, it's mind-boggling to me that he feels the need to agitate. Every game though, it's the same thing, Chapie doing stupid things to put his team in jeopardy.I'm not sure when this guy thought it was going to be his role to be an agitator, but here's a clue...it ain't working. The D-1 officials have no patience for it, you've obviously been watching too many NHL games. STOP!
Confusion in the D-zone. Again, I chalk this up to more line juggling. If there is anywhere where familiarity with your linemate is essential, it's on D. More juggling = more confusion, IMO. I still see two D men pursuing a single puck carrier. I still see two D-men confused over their responsibility during a breakout.
Tentative play overall. Some of this can be attributed to some of the younger guys getting a bit squeamish as the level of play intensifies down the stretch, but not all. I still see these wishy-washy passes at half speed getting intercepted, when a difintive hard pass would not have. Very frustrating to watch.
And now, I'll do something that I have not done since he got here, which is, criticize Bazin. First off, let me say that I'm not qualified to coach this team and could not do near the job that he has, not even close. That said, something is going on internally, IMO. The team seems lack-luster since the break. Are some of them souring on Bazin's message/system?
OK, let's start with the PP and the 'fake the entry and play it back to the point man in the Neutral zone' move, to gain entry into the O-zone...IT AIN"T WORKING, and hasn't for many games (well, many games not played against teams not named ASU). Stop, Normie, just stop. IMO, we're also getting too cute, trying to play for the perfect shot scenario. Friday against NU, their goalie gave up a rebound on almost every shot, but instead of just getting pucks on net and crashing for the rebound, we went the cute route. Again, tough to watch. Again, ineffective.
Maybe, I'm making too much of a late season slump, but the Pairwise machine is always watching and I fear, just as last year, we're letting the tournament slip away after it was firmly in our grasp a month ago.
/rant over.
